| News 2009 |
|
| April
|
Results of the TMT campaign of testing 6 sites are publicly available.
Shoeck et al. "Thirty Meter Telescope Site Testing I: Overview"
ArXiv:0904.1183 (contains the full list of future papers)
Els et al. "Thirty Meter Telescope Site Testing VI: Turbulence Profiles"
ArXiv:0904.1865
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| April
|
Update on the MASS-DIMM results at Kislovodsk. See the
English version of the
presentation by Kornilov et al.
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| News 2008 |
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| December
|
Free atmosphere at Mt. Maidanak (Uzbekistan) have been studied with MASS over 3 years (2005-2007).
The median seeing in the free atmosphere (above 1km) is 0.37", the median isoplanatic angle is 2.47",
and the median AO time constant is 7ms - almost two times larger than in most observatories!
The paper by V.Kornilov, S.Ilyasov, O.Voziakova et al. with these results
is accepted by "Astronomy Letters", see it on astro-ph
ArXiv:0905.0741
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| November
|
 Seven MASS-DIMM instruments have been fabricated and tested at CTIO,
to be delivered to various observatories. This brings the total number of MASS-DIMM instruments
built to 31. There are no plans to continue this production!
|
|
| June
|
Several papers based on the MASS-DIMM results are presented at the SPIE Conference
"Astronomical Instrumentation" in Marseille, e.g. by
Els et al. and by Thomas-Osip et al.
|
|
| February
|
 First results from the MASS-DIMM seeing monitor
operated robotically at Kislovodsk (Northern Caucasus) are available
in a report by V.Kornilov and his site-testing team [PDF, 2.8M ] . Over 3 months in 2007, the
median seeing was 0.94", with 0.44" median seeing above 1km. The
picture shows the RCX-400 telescope with MASS-DIMM, reinforced finder
with a TV camera for pointing, and custom anti-fog protection (click
to enlarge). See also MASS page at Sternberg |
| News 2007 |
|
| July
|
Papers on the MASS-DIMM instrument and accuracy of the MASS and DIMM methods are submited to MNRAS:
"Combined MASS-DIMM instrument fro atmospheric turbulence studies" [PDF, 436K ]
"Accurate seeing measurements with MASS and DIMM" [PDF, 436K ]
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June
|
Two MASS-DIMM units are in regular operation at Palomar. More on the Palomar MASS-DIMM
web page
See also recent paper
|
| News 2006 |
|
| June
|
Recent papers using MASS data on astro-ph:
astro-ph/0606332
Athey A. et al. "GMT Ground-Layer Experiment"
astro-ph/0604538
Kenyon S. et al. "Scintillation at Dome C, Antarctica"
astro-ph/0603170
Britton M. "Anisoplanatic PSF in Adaptive Optics"
|
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| June 10
|
Suzanne Kenyon compared the MASS data from Cerro Tololo
(2002-2006, 64504 profiles) with the wind speed data extracted from
NCEP/NCAR. Correlation between seeing in
the free-atmosphere and wind speed. See also the new document on the
calibration of MASS time constant [PDF, 150K].
|
|
|
| March 24
|
Tests of the new MASS software, Turbina, are under way.
The new version will permit a partial correction for strong scintillation.
Example of re-processing |
|
| March 3-15
|
Four new MASS-DIMM instruments are produced for ESO, to support
the European ELT site-testing program. Another set of 5 units is produced by CTIO for
some other observatories.
More on
acceptance and testing of new MASS-DIMMs...
|
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| News 2005 |
|
| November
|
A MASS is being used at the Mt. Maidanak observatory in
the Republic of Uzbekistan to monitor the turbulence profile.
More about this campaign...
|
|
| September
|
A MASS-DIMM starts regular operation at Palomar, in support of classical
observations and adaptive optics. Provisionally, one of the TMT site-testing units is used while a fabrication of the permanent instrument is proceeding.
See
MASS-DIMM plots at Palomar
|
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| May
|
Data of MASS-DIMM and SODAR from Cerro Pachon are used in a statistical model of the turbulence
profile at this site. Paper submitted to MNRAS, see
PDF, 365K [Accepted October 2005].
|
| News 2004 |
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| December
|
Plastic replicas of MASS-DIMM segmentators are produced and installed in three new
instruments. See the Report on replication process
PDF, 312K .
|
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| December
|
A campaign of comparison of SLODAR with MASS-DIMM and SODAR has
been conducted at Cerro Tololo from Nov. 21 to Dec. 3, 2004 by
R.Wilson, T.Batterley, M.Sarazin and A.Tokovinin. During this period,
experiments on planet scintillations were performed: see the
report .
|
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| October
|
The problem of the MASS "over-shoots" is understood. See the
Short explanation ,
Case-study report , Report on experiments , Simulations
|
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| September 16
|
A paper on the MASS results from Dome C is published in Nature. More information and links at the
Mike Ashley's site
|
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| September 13
|
A stand-alone MASS module fed by a 8-cm refractor has been tested at La Silla as a "piggy-back"
to the standard ESO site monitor, DIMM. It is now translated to the Paranal
for providing real-time support of adaptive-optics work.
MASS-LITE on top of the ESO DIMM
See also the
ESO MASS web site
|
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| May
|
Inter-comparison of three different MASS instruments.
Comparison plots
|
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| March
|
March 24: MASS starts working at Dome C!
First profiles from Antarctica.
Article on MASS-DIMM in NOAO/NSO Newsletter [PDF]
|
|
| January
|
Report on MASS-SCIDAR comparison from the Mauna Kea-2002 mission:
PDF, 1.68M
|
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| News 2003 |
|
| December
|
MASS-DIMM is installed at a site in the Northern Chile.
The fabrication of nine MASS-DIMMs is finished!
|
|
October
|
First light of MASS-DIMM at Tololo on October 3/4 2003:
Cn2 profiles and
free-atmosphere seeing
|
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| September
|
MASS database is on-line! Look at
http://mass.ctio.noao.edu
|
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| September
|
Integration of several MASS-DIMM instruments starts
in La Serena. See the presentation of MASS-DIMM electronics by Victor
Kornilov on Sept. 24, 2003: Power-point, 254K
Pictures of assembled MASS-DIMM , electronics and detector module,
plate and segmentator. Pictures of
MASS-DIMM with Meade telescope: picture1 ,
picture2 . More pictures...
|
|
| May |
MASS-DIMM project |
|
| February 9 |
ESO MASS is installed at Cerro Paranal, to work in campaign mode in support of AO operations at VLT. More details here.
The
graphical report on the March 2003 campaign is prepared by M. Sarazin.
|
|
| January 8 |
MASS starts site monitoring at Cerro Pachon, a campaign organized by
CTIO and SOAR. See the REPORT on this campaign.
|
|
News 2002 |
|
| October
17-23: | MASS is installed at the 24-inch telescope at
Mauna Kea (Hawaii) and takes part in a site evaluation campaign
together with SCIDAR and DIMMs. More on this
campaign...
|
|
| September: |
The results of 3 months of continuous monitoring of turbulence profile
and seeing at Cerro Tololo are avilable here.
|
|
| August 22-28: |
SPIE Conference "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation". Get the
paper 4839-102 and the
poster on MASS instrument.
|
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| July 2002 : |
Campaign of comparison between MASS and SCIDAR starts at
La Silla (ESO) on July 7. See some results here.
|
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| June 2002: |
Turbulence monitoring at Cerro Tololo continues.
A 4-night period of exceptionally calm atmosphere was detected on
June 19-22, 2002
|
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| May 14-22: |
Commissioning of ESO MASS at Cerro Tololo (M. Sarazin, V. Kornilov,
A. Tokovinin, M. Schoeck).
Results of comparison on May 20-22, 2002
|
|
| April-May: |
MASS starts regular operation at Cerro Tololo |
|
| March 19-27: |
MASS Commissioning run at Cerro Tololo, Chile.
See some results here. |
|
| January: |
MASS Commissioning in Moscow. M. Sarazin and N. Hubin (ESO) and
A. Tokovinin (CTIO) worked with Kornilov's team.
Picture 1: N. Hubin and M. Sarazin discuss
MASS alignment with Victor.
Picture 2: Victor explains the software.
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